The present invention generally relates to handling of financial institution accounts and, more specifically, to methods and systems for facilitating switching of financial institution accounts and any corresponding account linkages.
Various payment methods are currently available to consummate payment for commercial transactions. Such payment methods include, for example, credit cards and debit cards. Transactions conducted with credit cards and debit cards generally involve a payment association, such as Visa.
Furthermore, with respect to transactions conducted with debit cards, direct deposit accounts (DDAs) maintained by financial institutions are also involved. In a typical debit-card payment arrangement, a debit card is offered by a financial institution, such as a commercial bank, in collaboration with a payment association. The debit card is generally tied to a DDA at the issuing financial institution that issues the debit card to the account holder. Unlike a typical credit-card payment arrangement, when the account holder uses his/her debit card to pay for a transaction, no credit is extended to the account holder. Instead, the amount needed to satisfy the transaction is deducted from the DDA of the account holder.
In the debit-card payment arrangement, the issuing agreement between the financial institution and the payment association may terminate. For example, a financial institution for business reasons may switch from one payment association to another. Typically, when that happens, the financial institution issues new debit cards to its customers under the brand of the new payment association. In some cases, however, some of the financial institution's customers may not wish to carry a card with the brand of the new payment association for any number of reasons. For example, a customer may wish to stay with the original payment association because s/he has earned substantial rewards or loyalty points with that payment association, and a switch to the new payment association would mean forfeiting those rewards. A customer may also have loyalty to one payment association over the other, based on unique promotions, sponsorships, and/or co-brand relationships offered by that association. In these cases, the customer would need to make a transition to a new financial institution that issues debit cards carrying the brand of the desired payment association. This would include not only opening a new DDA with a different financial institution and closing the old DDA, but migrating any linkages to the new DDA for purposes of, for example, direct deposit (e.g., payroll checks from an employer) or automatic bill payments (e.g., recurring payments for monthly bills). Because of these potential linkages, it can be a very tedious process for a financial institution customer to go through in order to make that transition to remain with the old payment association.
Hence, it would be desirable to provide methods and systems that are capable of streamlining the process of switching DDA accounts in order to maintain a debit-card relationship.